sana28102810 wrote:
Hi all,
I had been studying for a minimum of 4-5 hours almost daily since the past two months for the GMAT. My veritas mocks represented a score of 590 - 610. For my first Official GMAT attempt, I was confident that I would at least end up in the 550 plus bracket if not the 600s. To my sheer horror I scored 370 in my initial diagnostic test of Gmat prep given in Feb-18 without any preparation. I was well versed with SC rules, scoring 77 percent, CR being my highest with 90 percent accuracy, only RC being my weakest in mocks. I was scoring above 40 in my mocks in Math, but ended up scoring 23. I don't understand what went so terribly wrong, that I ended up with a score even below 400! Without a doubt, I cancelled my scores and did not send them to any of my schools that I was applying to. The resources I used were as follows:
1. Kaplan questions
2. Veritas VALT exams
3.
OG'15
4. GMAT Prep
I think I am a terrible test taker. I have such history. I have no idea how I will ever be able to overcome this hurdle. I need help in my analysis guys!
Edit: Formatting
Hi
sana28102810,
It's very strange that you saw such a large discrepancy between your practice tests and your actual score! The first step is to try to figure out what went wrong. The main reason for such a big score drop on test day is usually test anxiety, so first read these articles:
Next, I recommend reading the following article about studying for a retake:
And here are some specific suggestions for your practice and preparation. Click on the links to read articles about each topic:
You should also definitely spend some time going back through and reviewing your old practice questions. Make sure to keep an
error log throughout, and review it frequently. I want to emphasize that the
quality of your studies is much more important than the
quantity. Learning from mistakes is key. If it were possible to never make the same mistake twice, you would become an absolute master of the test in a very, very short time. So be sure that you go through the explanation, study very carefully the related concepts, research methods or material you're not comfortable with but are mentioned in the solution, and really
analyze the questions.
Make it your goal to understand inside-out every single practice question you do, so that if you see that same question in the future, you know that you will nail it. In fact, if you review a question one day, it's good to go back to it four to five days later to see if you still understand it. Always be checking how much you have retained or how much you can actually remember from what you think you understand. Until you can recall something at any time, without any hints or warm-up, immediately and with complete clarity--until you can recall it like that--you don't really understand it as deeply as you need to. The goal in learning is NOT efficiency but rather thoroughness.
I'd also recommend reading through
Mike's list of the habits of excellence, and try to incorporate those as much as possible in your practice!
Finally, it sounds like you would benefit from taking more full-length, timed practice tests. If you've already taken the GMATprep tests, then I'd recommend the practice tests from Manhattan.
I hope some of this helps!
-Carolyn
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26 Apr 2018, 07:42
